As I sign of my psychic genius, I will predict your New Year’s Resolutions. They are:

1. I will save or earn more money.
2. I will become more healthy.
3. I will be less cluttered and more organized.

Hopefully I can help with the first one (subscribe to updates!). And here’s something for the second – Discovery Health is offering a free 8-week membership at Bally’s for registering for their Body Challenge:

All registered National Body Challenge participants will receive FREE access to our online customized meal plan, a personalized weight tracker, extensive information from doctors and health & fitness experts, a free 8-week membership to Bally Total Fitness?, online recipes, special savings from Discovery Channel Stores and more. The 8-week Bally Total Fitness? pass is only available until January 16, 2007 at 11:59 PM (ET) and is effective from January 13, 2007 through March 10, 2007.

You must register, print out the pass, and bring it to Bally’s starting on the the 13th. I just read somewhere that out of the huge amount of gym sign-ups in January, the majority are canceled by April. This is a great way to try using a gym (if you have a Bally’s nearby) without any commitment.

Oh, you’re on your own for the third one. Getting organizational advice from me is like asking Britney Spears how to be a good mom.

Update: I still think this is potentially a great deal, although you may need to endure a sales pitch. Some Bally’s may use lame sales tactics, but all gyms in a nationwide chain are not created equal. They should give you the passes without requiring your credit card information. If not, fight back!

SBC is currently offering free access to the Entertainment Book online. If you don’t know, this is basically a big coupon book that people usually buy for $20-$40. I’m not a big Entertainment Book fan, as I rarely frequent the restaurants on their list. I also dislike how they advertise “Save 50% at Chili’s! and 2-for-1 at Baja Fresh!”, but it turns out to be good only at one specific location 20 miles away.

But hey, if it’s free why not take a look. I didn’t find anything special for my area, except maybe some slightly discounted movie tickets. Link via KR via SlickDeals.

The American Express Platinum Business Premium Cash Rebate Card is again offering a $250 statement credit (update: removed) after your first purchase, with no annual fee. If you got in on this last time like I did, you may not be able to get it again unless you have a 2nd business – “You may be permitted to have more than one American Express? Business Card account; however, you are eligible to receive only one promotional $250 statement credit per unique business.”

See other similar $100+ bonuses here.

Added: I just saw this if you click on “Special Offer” in the upper-left – “Note: Only business owners who received this offer via Inc. Magazine qualify to apply for a Card through this website.” I don’t remember seeing that last time, so watch out.

Sharebuilder is Costco’s “Service of the Month” for December, and they are running a promotion offering $90 Costco Cash for Executive Members ($70 for Gold or Business Members). There’s no reason not to go for the $90, since you can’t lose with Executive membership – They’ll pay you back any of the $50 extra you don’t gain in purchases. You do need to open an account and make one stock purchase.

Don’t have Costco? You can find a bunch of regular $50 Sharebuilder promotional codes here. Now, unless you really want to use Sharebuilder as your broker, there are two options to get your bonus, as selling stock there costs $15.

1. Instant Gratification:Open with $5. Buy $1 of stock and pay $4 for commission. Wait for your bonus. Let the $1 in stock just rot there.
2. Delayed Gratification: Open with $50. Buy $46 of a quality stock like Berkshire Hathaway and pay $4 for commission. Get the $50 (or more), and treat it like you just got free stock. Just sit back for a decade or two while it grows and grows. Details on this method here.

If you choose the latter and are going to open with at least $20, you can try to combine this with the $20 back from eBates. You can only get one eBate rebate, but myself and others have successfully gotten multiple Sharebuilder bonuses by applying again after getting the first bonus. Others simply opened up multiple accounts for others in their household: spouse, kids, parents, and so on.

As promised, this is a quick update to the Citi Credit Protector $100 Gas Rebate offer. If you signed up, don’t forget to cancel your 30-day trial. The number again is 1-888-592-7344. If you haven’t, the offer is still available.

Here is a scan of my rebate form. It’s for the $100 all at once, and it says nothing about having to remain a member to redeem. I called to confirm and they said that receipts before your sign-up date are not valid (makes sense). I did a lot of driving over Thanksgiving and easily spent $100 in gas, so I’ll be sending in my rebate form in tomorrow. Hopefully this will be another easy hundred bucks to fund my gifts… uhh, Roth IRA! 😉

Payouts for my Emigrant Direct Signup Bonus went out last week for verified Form #2 submissions in October. If you?re interested in opening an account with Emigrant Direct?s 5.05% APY with no minimums, why not get yourself an extra $20 out of it?

Here’s a great find – learn a new language for free (well, your taxes may have paid for it) at FSI Language Courses:

These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain. This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. It is an independent effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages.

Included are Arabic, Cambodian, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese. If you have problems downloading like I did, try using Internet Explorer and Right Click > “Save File As…”. The audio should show up in mp3 format. Thanks to DumbLittleMan for the tip.

As part of the Discover Mall Holiday promotion, they are offering $20 for each $200 spent. However, there was no mention of what would happen if you returned the items after you “spent” the money. Since credit card companies are usually masters of the fine print, I figured they had some sort of mechanism in place to prevent this. Nope.
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Today (11/21) only, SunRocket is offering 2 years for $199. This “special” seems to come around every other month or so. I’ve been using SunRocket instead of a landline for over a year now now and I remain very satisfied for the price – check out my SunRocket Review for details. My faxing now works 95% of the time.

Added: You can also get two years for $199 from ViaTalk VoIP.

Update: The below promotion is now expired. The New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN now offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping and 1X point on everything else. The annual fee for this card is $175 but it is waived for all new cardholders. You can also get unlimited additional gold cards for an extra annual fee of $50 but this fee is waived for the first year as well.

I just got my first statement, and it looks like I have received all the free bonuses promised from the New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN. I am going to put this $100 and $50 gift card towards holiday gifts 🙂 For all the details, I have organized this and other free $100 bonuses into one central post.